In the Grass...

Is there a better way to spend a late summer evening, than by reading in the grass?  I cannot think of one, except perhaps to spend it reading in the grass with people I love. 
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​There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.

- John Calvin
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​The days are growing shorter here, but the evenings still are long.  The grass is green and soft beneath the trees, despite the drought, and the first wisps of something like autumnal scents are in the air.  It's the scent of the low sun on green leaves, the smell of a warmth that engulfs but doesn't stifle.  We've gathered in this grass and late-light to read aloud - a short story that makes us laugh, a poem that makes us think, a memory of early summer that makes us smile, a prayer that makes us ponder, a familiar line from a novel that we all quote and listen to simultaneously. It is restful here in the grass. 
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​The grass so little has to do,
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,
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And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;

-Emily Dickinson, The Grass

The low-angle sunbeams make the gnats in their morphing amoeba look like sparks, dancing. Even the dust when we shake out the picnic blanket looks beautiful and fairyish in this light. Perhaps it is because the words we've read this evening have awakened our minds more fully to the splendor of the ordinary.  Perhaps it's because reading, in nature, with companionship is quite a powerful way to bridge the created and the Divine.  I really do mean it truly, I cannot think of a better way to spend a late summer's evening than in the grass, with a friend, and a book.
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Pride of trees, / Swiftness of streams,
​Magic of frost / Have shaped our dreams.​

​- Eiluned Lewis, from 'Dew on the Grass'
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